Photo of North Saskatchewan River near Prince Albert courtesy of Mervin Brass of Treaty 4 News.
Stakeholders will learn the results of water tests on the North Saskatchewan River today and the public will be informed tomorrow.
Hundreds of tests have been conducted after a pipeline rupture nearly two weeks ago dumped about 250,000 litres of crude oil into the river.
Communities downstream, including North Battleford, Prince Albert and Melfort, have had to shut down their water intake and find alternate sources of drinking water.
Environment ministry official Ash Olesen provided a hint about what the tests may show.
“I don’t have the benefit of all the analysis at my fingertips,” he said. But Olesen is hoping for good news: “My expectation is that the water is not that dangerous, but I need to see all the analysis and have it vetted by the various experts.”
Among the experts talking to reporters during a conference call today was Patrick Boyle with the Water Security Agency.
He says it is still impossible to pin down how long the contamination will last.
“We are getting closer to that as more samples come in and we do our own assessment on that,” he said. “But as the independent regulator, we are going to have to consider all of those things and look at the larger picture and make a determination from there. But a timeline on that, we don’t have one yet.”
The oil has drifted more than 500 kilometres to Codette Lake.
Most of the environmental damage and harm to wildlife is concentrated closer to the spill site near Maidstone.